FFXIV Patch 3.5 – The Far Edge of Fate, Part 1 and Part 2 Separately Coming in January and March 2017

During November 25’s Letter from the Producer Live, Final Fantasy XIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida revealed new information for the game’s upcoming 3.5 patch, The Far Edge of Fate, part 1 will be released in January 2017 and part 2 in March 2017. Here, Mmogah will summarize the main contents of the letter in the following parts.

New dungeons

Baelsar’s Wall

Many of you have probably already seen Baelsar’s Wall, the Garlean gate located in the East Shroud. This extensive wall separates the Garlean Empire and Eorzea, and was built with the intention of protecting the Empire from the threat of beast tribes and primals. The warrior of light will finally be able to storm into this area.

Sohm Al (Hard)

This is the hard mode dungeon for Sohm Al, implemented in 3.0. In the normal version you scaled your way up, but this time you’ll be descending downwards. You can look forward to finding out exactly why you’ll be visiting this area once more.

New alliance raid dungeon

Dun Scaith

This is the third entry in the Mhach series. Hold on for further info in the next LIVE letter. This will be the 24 player alliance raid dungeon. I touched on this at Fan Fest, but this raid will be elaborate straight from the first boss. The first boss battle will take place on-board an airship, so the ground will be quite unstable. Dun Scaith will be the first 24 player raid with such precarious footing, but there will be other mechanics for each area. Please look forward to it!

New trials

Containment Bay Z1T9

Containment Bay Z1T9 (Extreme)

This is the final member of the Warring Triad, following Sephirot and Sophia. You can expect many of the mysteries from this story to be cleared up.

New Content in 3.5 and 3.55

Zhloe Aliapoh

This is a new type of content, for Disciples of the Hand and Land.

You accept gathering/crafting requests for collectable items from certain NPCs to raise the satisfaction level of of those characters. As the patch progresses, other clients will appear apart from Zhloe Aliapoh, and the content will focus on glamour elements moving forward. Ultimately, the main theme of the content will be focusing on glamours, so you can make your character even more glamourous!

New Content in 3.5 and 3.55 Updated Content: Exploratory missions

The official put a lot of thought into a new name, but since the title for Exploratory missions is already fixed, they decided to keep the name as-is. Pre-existing exploratory missions will be heavily updated:

Hunting exploratory missions

Gathering exploratory missions

As you can see, the official has completely separated the content for battle and gathering classes. A cataclysmic event takes place, making the current diadem area a thing of the past. For this reason, players will be unable to enter from Patch 3.5. After that, players will have to wait a while until the opening of the new Diadem content, currently planned for release a little after Patch 3.5, in the 3.5x series.

The map for the Diadem won’t change much, but there will be differences in where you can and can’t go.

The theme of the previous version of exploratory missions was to have the players decide how they would enjoy the content themselves, but in the new version, objectives will be clearly assigned.

There will be some surprises too, such as boss battles that involve the entire map area. On top of that, some tough enemies will appear that will be hard to beat unless you form groups of four parties.

The official will have more details on this in the Patch 3.5 Preview Part 2.

Rest assured that all 9 types of achievements available in exploratory missions right now will also be obtainable in the new Diadem.

PvP Updates

Frontline

Players will have the option of being matched without Grand Company requirements, by simply selecting an option.

The official was concerned that this feature might be abused, so originally did not allow matching without GC requirements, but since we plan to add new PvP content in 4.0, we decided to try and it see how it goes. We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback.

Of course, players will still be able to participate as a specific Grand Company

Dueling

The official received a lot of feedback from players asking for a level sync feature, so we’ve set an Item Level sync of 150, the same level as the Feast. If you are below IL 150, your item level will not be synced.

In addition, we will be adding an ability to sync gear to host’s item level, but of course, players will still be able to enjoy unsynced duels and lastly, all action recast timers will be reset at the start of duels.

Chocobo Companion Updates

It will become possible to register for the Duty Finder while your chocobo companion is present. To accommodate this, companions will be handled in the party list as pets rather than party members, but there will be no changes to companion behaviour.

Of course, summoners and scholars will still be able to use their egis and pets at the same time.

You will also be able to call out your chocobo when in a full party, meaning you can have a party of 8 players and 8 chocobos. But, as mentioned, chocobos are treated as pets so you will need to target other players’ chocobos to see their HP.